


Fanfic100 Prompts

by davefoley



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Community: fanfic100, Dubious Consent, Explicit Sexual Content, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, One Word Prompts, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Slash, Suggestive Themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-06-30 04:27:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15744294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/davefoley/pseuds/davefoley
Summary: Chapter 1: Piercintyre -- Beginnings/Middles/EndsChapter 2: Hawkcahy -- Insides/OutsidesChapter 3: Hunnihawk -- Too Much/Not EnoughChapter 4: Hunnihawk -- Broken/FixedChapter 5: Hunnihawk -- Breakfast/Lunch/DinnerChapter 6: Hawklyle -- Heart/Diamond (1/2)





	1. Piercintyre, 1-3

**Author's Note:**

> http:// fanfic100.livejournal.com/profile I explore old mash fanfic communities regularly and came across this from a hunnihawk series so i figured i might give a hand at it in order... i think i'll have them in associated sets and different ships and ratings and warnings will come along when necessary, enjoy!

1\. Beginnings

In the beginning, there was a big bang.

You and Trapper left the supply shed quite sated that day.

And satisfaction remained on the tongue for the rest of Trapper’s tenure, mixed in with alcohol and witticisms, fire dressed up in acrimony which singed the teeth when they clicked against each other. Something merely wet needed to douse it, something that went down smooth -- many things go down smooth if they slid on your tongue just right -- and Trapper should have been a euphemism for water bearer.

Things start with good things they never start with bad things, things wouldn’t have hooked us to this existence if things weren’t okay or simply better than worse. Things are his smile and his hair, they’re his accent and his soul, they’re his shackles to Korea and his plane back home.

And beginnings, there are always new ones. Sometimes you have to throw some things away to keep beginning with something good, okay, or better than worse.

In the beginning, your throat was so parched.

But it could have been worse.

*

2\. Middles

“Whereas a story needs a middle to hold the beginning and end to be constituted as a story, a soldier can have the middle of his intestines removed and his beginning and end sewed together in an end to end anastomosis... and still be constituted as human,”

“It’s a little late to be going on about those kinds of things, Hawk.”

Hawkeye lifts his head groggily up at your comment and looks outside.

“Gee, I only felt like I was talking for a couple of minutes and now nine am is pm.”

“You’re recovering from exhaustion Hawk -- you’ve got some phenobarbital sitting in your stomach to help ya sleep.” you say from your crate, with a cup of coffee and more warming on the stove. Hawkeye’s hair is mussed up and the stubble looks like a little bit of an issue -- he’s still in his scrubs and the blanket looks haphazardly thrown onto him but believe you me, you couldn’t keep a sedated Hawkeye in a cocoon long enough before he’s thinking it’s time for metamorphosis.

“What happened?” When he tries to stir, you lay your hand on his chest gently and push him down. Already it’s like the sedatives did nothing but made him antsier. You can’t help but wonder in an environment like this, there’s a way to tell an adrenal gland to sit down and shut it.

“What hasn’t happened? You worked days on end without a wink of sleep sewing up bodies, started having a walnut for a head, and Henry had to look away while the nutcracker did his job.”

“And you’ve been...”

“Henry had to put me on babysitting duty just in case you figured out how to sleep operate.” His eyes move maybe just for the sake of moving and when he lays his eyes on you, that’s when you toss him the smile. Hawkeye maintains his stare as he slowly grabs your hand, still resting on his sternum gauging the steady intake of air. He takes it and kisses the back of it long and easy.

“I could have managed I think,” Hawkeye begins mumbling as if the sedation came back in for a second round, but you think it’s really because you’ve moved closer to him with two free hands and started to run them along his waist. It’s the same kind of slow going motion that massages him back to acquiescence and you both relish the quick shot of intimacy in the dark.

“I think my favourite part of the body is the middle,” you lean over to peck at the exposed stomach he shows from a case of severe shirt riding, and you faintly feel him quake in laughter against your lips. You then lean back up, adjust, until you’re kissing his neck. Lucky you, it’s a quick shot, but it takes time to push the plunger. “Playing with it should be a sport, I would be an MVP with the ladies.” Your hand rests far too comfortably on his abdomen and he knows it, intrinsically.

“If I was more conscious, I would bench you.” His entire body feels like it yearns for you but he’s too tired, too tired.

“Whatever you say, coach,” you’re next to him now sharing his cot to the best of your abilities and you have him curled around your body, suddenly too tiny for words. “It’s the end of the story now, good night.”

“It just feels like we got from point A to point C.”

“Point B was removed.”

*

3\. Ends

“I hate this fucking war,” you grit out, walking into the Swamp with Trapper as you run the list in your mind all the soldiers you’ve put together. It used to be by name through dog tags -- Johnson, Smith, O’Doherty, Mitchell -- but dog tags came off the same way the clothes did, until all you could see were fresh wounds and cracked bones.

Then it slowly became twenty guys with shrapnel in their legs and ten with internal hemorrhaging, five who were just dead, and maybe a single man who’s lucky to go awol. You throw off your clothes like you can physically slide off the blood that’s eroded deep deep down into your skin. In your utter nakedness, Trapper does a good job of pretending you’re bare.

War is a three letter word.

“You know, I’ve had sex with plenty of women,” Trapper muses while he lazily caresses you in different places. “But sex with you is great.”

“That’s good to hear,” you say, and then climb onto him to straddle him. He groans and it’s like steel wool -- it’s abrasive enough to almost get it off. White on red is very stark, but if it’s not bleaching you, what is it doing? It just sinks into you the same way the blood does, mingles, and becomes the raw pinkness of your flesh your flesh your flesh your flesh his flesh

our flesh

Sex is a three letter word.

This new man, Hunnicutt, looks fresh, flesh faced. Could flesh against red look anymore distinct?

“So what are you doing in Kimpo if you weren’t assigned to pick me up?”

End is a three letter word, “I want it to” can be put in three three letter words with some adjusting.

“I was trying to see if I could catch my friend before he left,” you check your watch, pretending there’s no obfuscation of sight, no spills preventing you from seeing the hands tick innocently. “But I missed his flight by...”

Ten is a three letter word, leaves the mouth just as quick as

“Ten minutes.”

At that moment, the earth really felt like it was going to a three letter word.


	2. Hawkcahy, 4-5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yep.. still working through it

4\. Insides

Hawkeye can’t describe the visceral feeling of touching insides. It’s something more vulgar than sex, he thinks. It’s soft and slick, wet and slimy, intimate yet impersonal, invasive yet flippant. Close your legs like you would sew up a long incision from the sternum to the lower abdomen, stitch them up and hope to never open it again.

But Hawkeye has to keep opening. Has to keep spreading them open. Has to work inside until it’s over, until it feels like there’s a lull and he can simply rest antsily.

It keeps coming, Hawkeye thinks, in two ways.

“Don’t push yourself Hawkeye,” Mulcahy says as he rests Hawkeye’s head in his lap. They’re underneath a tree in a field and it’s so quiet, Hawkeye keeps his breathing down just so he can hear the silence. “I notice that you exhaust yourself even in pleasure, and it pains me to see you run to the ends of your fibers.”

“M’fine,” If Hawkeye could bury himself into Mulcahy, he would. “I just need you, the sun, and all the time in the world to feel better.”

“Easier said than done!” Mulcahy chides him and the soft hand he has resting in the nest of Hawkeye’s hair firms up. When Hawkeye had visited him in his tent, Mulcahy noticed he was limping and tired. And it wasn’t just because he had done 12 hours of surgery. “You put yourself in danger with your activities, and as a priest, I have to make a plea towards your sense of self preservation!” He begins to grimly remember another night he caught Hawkeye in an empty room with someone, and it felt like Gd wasn’t there for either of them.

Hawkeye lifts up from his position, originally laid down and in a sort of half fetal position. He’s sitting up now and looking at Mulcahy. “You’re not my priest, you’re my lover.” Hawkeye says, incensed. Trying to maintain his composure, Hawkeye stands up and faces him from where the sun beat down on them. And the light that breaks through Hawkeye’s frame is burning through -- there’s but a half opaque man before me, Mulcahy thinks drearily, I don’t remember Hawkeye looking like everything but his outsides have left him on a stretcher. His eyes flit quickly to Hawkeye’s. The world feels like it’s shifted emotionally.

“You’re my lover and a priest,” Hawkeye corrects, can’t finding how to describe Mulcahy’s shock within him, amongst a rotgut concoction inside consisting of anger and shame, because how dare he tell a holy man this! “And your being a priest means you can’t do things to me a lover could.” But how dare a holy man even love someone, Hawkeye thinks, like me.

“That doesn’t mean you can just let strangers have their way with you as a way to pretend everything’s as good as it feels.”

“At the moment it’s enough, Father,” It stings when Mulcahy hears Hawkeye call him that. “And what does it matter if I can’t have you?” Mulcahy’s face twists before he stands up and has Hawkeye’s wrist tightly in his grip before Hawkeye can storm off as he always does, storm off and...

“And do you think that changes how much I want to?” It felt like the sun was going to rest in the sky for so long, the harsh orange that overtakes them is new. Hawkeye looks a little bit taken aback, Mulcahy can see the slight bare of his teeth gritting when his grip tightens until it feels like Hawkeye won’t ever leave his sight again. Until it feels like he can get inside. “How much I want to touch you and have you... You have no idea all the things I’ve thought about doing with you.”

Just then, the faint sound of an intercom, while things felt soft in his eyes.

“Incoming wounded!”

Hawkeye’s fingers curl around Mulcahy’s grip and the tension is released, apprehensively, and then Hawkeye pulls Mulcahy into a kiss Mulcahy makes no motion to push away. The kiss becomes an embrace and then becomes hands held as they run towards the camp. Hawkeye thinks about how visceral insides and Mulcahy’s mouth and body feel.

*

5\. Outsides

The two of you returned to the 4077th. Triage was done as quick as possible and pre-op was expectantly packed. The OR is, as per when it need be, alive with the hustle and bustle of nurses refilling sponges and the surgeons diligently working away at wounded soldiers. As a priest, you only stand by and respond when needed, but while you’re waiting for someone to speak up, you take time in observing the surgeons.

“Metzenbaum scissors.”

“Gonna need a unit of negative AB here.”

“Close him up for me, nurse.”

There’s a practiced patience in the entire process that you can only wish you could participate in somehow. But observing takes your mind off on what had happened earlier, at that you thank the Lord. But it’ll nag at the back of your mind undoubtedly, fester in a temptation more sordid than the mud on your shoe. Will you ever completely relent?

“Damn it!” your ears immediately perk at the shout and it’s Hawkeye, straddling his patient and giving him chest pumps. “This guy’s already in shock, why wasn’t he one of the first ones in?!”

Major Houlihan is at the pump with a stethoscope, her eyes only on the soldier’s face as she gives air at Hawkeye’s command. “He didn’t have any visibly critical wounds besides a small belly wound, though the nurses said he could have slight internal bleeding so we had him on a unit of plasma to stabilize his condition while the ones worse off were treated,” she explains evenly while Hawkeye’s efforts start to get frantic, “pulse is still gone, doctor.”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” the cold impartial appearance of a surgeon’s mask over one’s face does nothing to fight back against the biting anger that cuts through Hawkeye’s face. “Don’t you fucking dare give up on me.” He keeps pressing and Houlihan keeps pumping and the entire room has stilled, breathlessly waiting for the climax. Hawkeye’s ability to appeal to people’s empathy is as clear as day. And yet you’ve never made an official statement on how you feel about that, in wake of your own abilities.

“I’m still not getting anything.” The Major herself sounds frustrated as well. Though she never confesses it, it’s obvious that her faith in Hawkeye’s abilities is strong enough that she doesn’t believe this could be happening. Exhaustion starts to grab at Hawkeye’s body.

“Pierce,” the Colonel speaks up and Hawkeye knows he should stand down but he never does. “Damn it, Pierce, it’s over! There are more patients in pre-op that still have a fighting chance!”

“He has a fighting chance too,” he only pants back in response and he tries to utilize the adrenaline in his body for another attempt at pressing the patient’s chest. Nothing happens. Hawkeye stops to catch his breath and Houlihan uses this as an opportunity to haul him gently off. “Nothing more can be done, doctor.” she says, and the OR is uneasily settled back into its normal rhythm while Hawkeye pleads with his eyes -- to a higher power possibly, for another chance. Klinger and a corpsman take away the soldier.

“Father,” you startle when you hear your title from the Colonel’s mouth. “Go over and do what you gotta do. Pierce, take a break and come back when you’re ready.” Hawkeye quietly walks behind you and the two of you leave the OR.

You try not to think about comforting Hawkeye while performing the last rites but the first thing you wanted to do when Hawkeye’s efforts were failing was to just grab him and hold him until he feels like it’s okay to cry. Luckily when you finished and the corpsmen took the soldier away, you could feel yourself being thrown into another intense embrace like earlier.

You figured to come up with something to say but you already feel Hawkeye’s tears against your garbs.

“They couldn’t tell he was dying from the outside,” Hawkeye heaves and your hand can only crawl up the expanse of his back, softly, to pat him while he shakes. “Why does it have to be so hard to tell how people are feeling from their cover,” What a mysteriously telling statement.

His head digs into your shoulder. You’re sure this looks strange given the height difference.

“Our outsides do a very, very good job at deceiving us,” you manage, “others, and ourselves. It’s protection in many ways.”

“If I could get past that and bring out what causes someone’s pain, I would.”

“Nobody is as external about anything than you, Hawkeye.” This is not as true as you want it to be, but that’s another pressing thought for later.

He smiles. “Thanks, Francis.” He gives you a peck on the cheek and you give one back — this surprises Hawkeye, but the toothy grin is a salve for the soul. He kisses you on the nose and forehead too.

“Please,” you nudge him as a gesture of good faith and embarrassment, adjusting yourself as you always do on the job. “Call me Father.” you say, and Hawkeye understands, glancing only a second at the swinging doors that immediately present Captain Hunnicutt.

“Well Father,” Hawkeye slides into it easily. “Thank you for the good will and good wishes, I am ready to begin again in Hippocrates’ great race for stock.” he doesn’t spare you anything else and jaunts over to the OR with ease. Hunnicutt looked a mix of impressed and curious and concerned.

“Whatever you said Father, I hope those words can inspire the others to keep going on as well, it looks like we’ll be going on for some time.” Hunnicutt only spares those few words before he goes back into the fray, and you, smiling to yourself like a fool, chuckle before walking back in as well.

A facade is a great many things, but it’s only something skin deep.


	3. Hunnihawk, 33-34

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for dubious consent and explicit sex... latter of which i wanted to avoid for these prompts but fuck it i was pretty much alluding to sex constantly with each of them already. enjoy

33\. Too Much

“I’m away from my wife and daughter, I’m away from civilization, I’m letting life go by because people — people in power, wanted to try their hand at the craps table—“

“Well join the fucking rest of us starved for society!” Hawkeye barks, his anger tempering his hackles until he’s prickly. “BJ you’re not the only one suffering, you’ll never BE the one suffering the MOST. So why don’t you quit that self aggrandizing pity party or so help me, I’ll crash it!” You’ve never felt anger consume you this fast. But the comfort of being inside a vessel unwilling to yield or let you shoulder pain on your own is forgiving in a feral way.

When you stalk closer to him with your entire body, brazen, it’s like a blunt object came down on his back and forced his hard quills so deep into him it impales him all the way through. A natural hubris. You’ve got the back of his legs aching against the foot of his bed. You’ve got his hands against your chest as either a come-on or an act of retaliation.

You angrily push him. His fists, falling naturally on each side of his head, stay there. And you make them stay there with your own hands. Looming over him you feel brief satisfaction, and borderline insatiable. His eyes betray an inherent terror that has sprouted from his blues, his entire self wanting to recede into that. When your hips are so close to his he startles, worries his lip, and recedes further.

“Beej,” Hawkeye chokes. “Beej.” He chokes because he’s letting it boil under the surface — lust on the onset of fear, which Hawkeye holds by the collar and the back of its head underneath the water’s surface until the bubbles stop coming up. It persists in clambering limbs and body bent over invitingly over the edge of the bathtub. His erection is there and it meets yours. In the heat of evil, sweet melange of sweet cruelty and petulance, you take the fear, took it, and you beat off to it.

Hawkeye forgives you in the morning because he understands, understood in the last breathy gasped moment. The underlying wish that he didn’t is another head dunked in cold water until it stops breathing. “All too much to think about,” he says, cowed into timidness for the time being. He says this for the both of you two over breakfast.

*

34\. Not Enough

“Come inside Beej,” Hawkeye pants. “Come inside.” You do just that.

“Deeper, do it deeper.” He says. “Beej,” You try to do just that.

“Keep going please, just keep going.” You don’t know how to keep going but you keep going. You keep at it like there’s a way to sink into it. Perchance to dream as there is perchance to empty everything in you until he’s full up in the tank and ready to drive off any second to leave you in the dirt.

You hold him down out of necessity then. He says “Hold me,” and you do it but for yourself, you grab his shoulders with white knuckles and you push him down with the rest of your body until like vines, the coils of the mattress will spring and tie him down until in his bed, he becomes embedded. “Down. Hold me down.” you catch yourself from saying under your breath.

“I want more, I need more Beej, please.” You can’t gauge the limits of how much he wants. Never have. You’ll run yourself ragged and stupid before his legs, whorishly up in the air trembling and curling like a leaf to a gust of wind, decide to snap off the branch and peel to the world’s elements. His hand is on your belly and it’s threatening to push, to cry for relief, but you know intimately he never pushes. He does it to coddle your feelings. And you fuck him harder as a result.

He doesn’t stop until someone fucks him so hard he forgets he’s in the war. He’ll revel in the heart pounding delirious thirty second orgasm that makes him cry into his pillow because it’s like you imbued a sense of normality into him, because it’s normal to be treated so kindly back in the states. He takes that moment of bliss and can construct a motel around it, at night time with the lights streaming in through the blinds and spilling distortedly on his chest, and the walls so thin he’ll try to moan like a woman so the neighbours aren’t too upset.

Though you are inside him, intimately immersing yourself, though you are bruising his skin to bring out blood in all his parts, you only feel like the figure looking in from that window jacking off at what appears to be someone who just looks like you, maybe is you, fucking him until his body holds limp for the next person to play with him.

“Oh— fuck, Beej—“

“Fuck—“

He blossoms for one night only and the next two years he’ll keep forcing himself open. A perpetual addict for the moonlight that shoots across his chest. You are but the sun that makes way for it.


	4. Hunnihawk, 71-72

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a reupload of prompt #71 i uploaded on december 11 that i realized had an accompanying #72 which i just wrote up right now in a 3 hour freak out! i'm very sleep deprived. please enjoy

71\. Broken

He kisses you low and long in the dark and forgets he’s had another nightmare. A kind of irony there is to chase away the terrors that swim around his ankles with sex, you think. Maybe there’s something subversive about the two of you taking the unseemly physical nature of a nightmare that grips at one’s body and turning it into a sudden flush of ecstasy.

The stages of a nightmare Hawkeye will go through is like this:

He’ll moan your name softly, at first. “BJ,” he’ll croon, because his nightmares are tragic, he’s thinking of you disembodied and bloody and pallid. The breathiness of it, the delivery, no different than when he can gather the energy to hold you tightly and say your name in your ear when he’s just about to come, shaking and crying for absolution. You’ll feel your whole spine prickle to that, even when “BJ” becomes a wail and then a piercing scream in the dark.

He’ll tremor. You can’t count on your hands anymore, nights where you’ve held that trembling frame, during nights where he’s clinging for dear life. Begging for mercy, in both cases, either to the world or your cock. The morbidity is not lost on the either of you, between the night sweats and the gasps for less or more, more or less... 

He’ll grab you like you wronged him and then kiss you like you’ve done everything right.

When he comes everything becomes silent — the world sort of peters out to make space for his stiffness, which takes up volumes in the small cramped space that everything suddenly feels like, a small cramped space. His whole body goes taut and all he can do is lie still and let it happen, defenseless from himself.

At least during his nightmares he’s trying, thrashing in his blankets and looking for invisible corpses, pretend torn limbs... In love you’re all there, whole and full. Then there is no reason to look for you because if you were broken, he could stare and see that plainly in your eyes as you make implicit promises with your lips to his that He stitched a play on sadomasochism of the mind and the body, and then delicately told you that he missed a hole inside That everything bled together and that you need to go inside to fix it because he trusts you More than he trusts himself

You will break him and Leave him in pieces under your hands

though he is already

Luckily, his eyes are closed the entire time,

but if they were open he would come right there and then.

*

72\. Fixed

The sand sinks into your feet as the tide splashes your ankles and the sky is dreary and white and it’s so perfect. You’ve taken to admiring the way the muddiness of the sand comes around and firmly roots you where you stand when you hear him on the drier parts running towards you.

“We can use the boat! Beej he said yes we can use the boat!”

Hawkeye catches you in a big embrace you’re too blissfully in the moment to return but he’s a whirlwind, already grabbing you by the shirt and then, intertwining his fingers with yours and dragging you to the pier with a dash. The gulls overhead squawk and pass over you like a transparent slide on a projector of this scene, this scene of you and Hawk running in slow motion; each frame of you another wistful polaroid of something that is quintessentially the feeling of being “at peace”, in a sepia tone.

Suddenly, you’re being rocked on a creaky rowboat as Hawkeye marshals you into the passenger seat across from him so he can take the oars and begin to row to a shape in the distance. The boat is freshly white washed, some barnacles haven’t been scraped off of the front and it feels sturdy, it feels good. Hawkeye doesn’t mind at all that you’re quiet, that you’re taking in things as they come. He’s excited and has a clear goal in his mind that belies the mild fog that begins to settle in around you like the sand, like the gentle but steady current.

Too busy rowing, really. But you catch a glimpse of him at the corner of your eye as you continue to take in Crabapple Cove and you see him looking at you with such a smile, a quietly awestruck one because he sees you and you’re there and there’s nothing that can deny that anymore. There’s nothing you can dangle over his head anymore and you’ve lost the reason for why you even felt like that was necessary.

In some kind of demented ritual the first day you came, he made you lie down on the beach when the tide was high so the both of you could get overcome by the wave over and over again. Among the seaweed, between the occasional crab and other small sea critters, through Hawkeye’s bellowing cackles that were interrupted with each rush of water that entered his lungs by his fault alone, you wonder if that’s the reason why you feel an inner tranquility. And if that certain forgiveness that suddenly felt imparted to you by the water of Maine, his essence, was forgiveness you had to give to yourself for becoming who you became then.

Or was it forgiveness he gave to you for knowing what you did and knowing he was as broken to accept it? He coerced you back then to believe he needed it. That you both needed it. You probably needed it yourself. He might have only been the one who set the fog aside for what was coming.

Either way, you picked out the shards for a long time. Put yourself back together as best you could. He did the same. The tide wasn’t strong enough to create a new person out of either of you, it was the salt that acted like a saline on your wounds that would caress the damage out so you two could finally sit across from each other and see what you two really are.

“We’re here Beej.”

It’s an island practically made for two. The pier is tiny, seemingly made just to fit this very boat. He takes your hand and helps you out and you almost slip. He has your hand the entire time as he is patient with you and now you both sit on patches of grass and notice, that the fog has rolled back and the sky is cloudless and bright and it’s still perfect.

“Isn’t it beautiful here,” Hawk brings your hand back to his and you rub your thumb on his bony knuckles. “It’s a special spot just for couples, actually.”

“Does Joe...” You gesture inquisitively. Joe was the name of the fisherman who owns the boat. Nice man, very typical twinkle in his gnarled eyes. He gives bear hugs and Hawkeye is very taken with him.

Hawkeye shakes his head. “No, he doesn’t know.” He tosses his head back when the breeze comes by, the smell of salt denser than ever. “He’s just a really nice man who doesn’t assume much of anyone.”

“Just two guys coming to an island where couples frequent,”

“I used to come here as a kid with my friends to play King of the Hill,” he says, and then grins. “It was one very fateful day when a second boat was suddenly squeezed onto the pier to reveal two very lustful lovebirds.”

A silence overtakes the two of you when within earshot, a fishing boat crew pulls up a net of fish. The crew yell in their gritty sailor’s tongue and they all wrestle with the pile until they pick out good fish to sell with the rest going back into the water to keep the numbers up.

When the boat pulls out of hearing distance, a hand tugs at the sleeve of your shirt and you find yourself caught in the salty warm kiss of Hawkeye Pierce. Or Ben, as he says it’s okay for you to refer to him as. Your hands crawl up his chest and you play with the first button of his jacket, his hands hold your wrists but not to stop you, to urge you. Yet you don’t do it and he doesn’t mind at all. He sighs into your lips and Gd, it’s too much.

“It must be weird,” he breathlessly laughs between the pauses the two of you take to get another gulp of air before going back in. “Seeing me for the first time in three years like this,” Hawk’s breath hitches like he’s about to cry and it’s so incredibly subdued, though you would have to be a different person not to notice it. “And I had to believe you would come, you didn’t respond for two weeks.”

“I didn’t mean to leave you on voice message like that,” you say as you dive back in, your hands at the side of his face holding him close to you so he doesn’t ebb when you ebb, so he flows with you just right. “Busy nights at the hospital, Erin sick from measles...”

“That was the second time I heard Peg’s voice and it was not good that time,” Hawkeye smiles and presses his forehead to yours. “I didn’t... do anything did I,” he kind of stiffens against you, you remedy this by slipping your tongue in and running your fingers down the skin behind his ears. He becomes liquid again.

“She’s known for a whole year at this point,” you remark dryly. “We’ve already set the terms out for what we want to do and she’s okay with it. I don’t fault Peggy at all for being upset anyway.”

“Always such a good husband,”

“I was a bad husband for a long time.”

The kissing quickens and your hands are so tight in his hair, his are too. He pushes you down and the phantom feeling of an itchy cot on your back is distinct.

“I forgive you anyway,” he says. The noise of relief that breaks out of you is nothing more than a sob. The kiss is eternal and now, your fingers reach for his buttons and he doesn’t have to urge you. He slips off his jacket, then his shirt, and sits back up, his weight on your crotch suddenly noticeable. “Come up BJ.” You sit up and then slide your legs from underneath him and then you push him down, your grip is unyielding as you kiss him with such a fervor a moan tumbles from his throat that burns itself into your chest and refuses to cool.

“Ben--”

“I forgive you Beej, I forgive you,”

“Ben--”

“I’ve forgiven you for a long time, when we laid onto the beach--”

“That was your way of absolving me,” you gasp, your abdomen quivering as Hawkeye’s hand slips into your pants and teases you by being hesitant. “Hawkeye, I know, we were...”

“We were cleaned,” Ben breathes out. His eyes are locked onto yours and they try very hard to stay open when they’d rather slip shut forever and let yourself be stripped of your senses. “Beej, I did it.”

“What did you do?”

“I found out how to love myself again.”

“How do you love yourself Ben, I’m--” You grunt. “I’m close, Ben--”

“By letting myself be loved by you.”

A loud horn tears through the air and the two of you rip yourselves away from each other to find the source of the sound. A boat a couple feet away innocently watches with a single person on board.

“The tide might be getting high a little earlier today lads!” the familiar gravelly tones of the man’s voice makes Hawkeye chuckle in disbelief as he smooths his hair down and stands up to look harder at the source. “Wouldn’t want your lovemaking ruined by a little bath!”

“Joe you son of a gun!” Hawkeye yells as you stand up and pretend you weren’t just about to come and lose yourself to Hawkeye in every sense. “So you knew the entire time!” He wrings his fist in mock anger and Joe throws his head back to cackle.

“You brought far too many boys here growing up for me not to catch on, Benny!” He looks at his watch. “Current’s going to get stronger too, you might have to row to my boat so I can get us back to the shore faster! No time to dawdle!”

Hawkeye turns to you and it’s like it’s just the two of you again all alone. He affirms you with a stare that is resolute and a little bit daunting, before a smile slowly takes his face. And you return the smile back.

“You heard the man,” he says, walking towards you to get to the rowboat hanging steadily on. Hawk sits down in the passenger seat this time. “No time to dawdle!” He leers at your crotch and you realize he knows what he just did and that he can’t be sorry about it.

“That smarts, Hawk.” you laugh and walk over — not without grabbing his jacket and shirt off the ground first — and taking the oars in the rests. The boat horn sounds again, louder somehow and more obnoxious and the two of you yell at Joe. The sky is cloudy again. And yes, it’s perfect, still.

And you can’t say you two are fixed, that you two aren’t broken anymore. But you and Hawk were holding on stubbornly, against all odds. Shabbily put together and leaning on each other for support, your wounds might touch but there’s no more pain that comes from contact anymore. You would recuperate together whether it was allowed or not.

One day, you and Ben will be fixed. Even if it takes a thousand washes on the shore, another thousand afternoons you’re left shivering and waterlogged.

Because the grip you’ll have on Hawkeye the entire time will make you feel together again.


	5. Hunnihawk, 56-58

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for the word q*eer, and yes, i am indeed STILL trucking along. finally got to write something with peg! it's a kinder character exploration with the hunnihawk taking a backseat in the final part. i also finally got to write about food, which is one of my favourite things to read about in books, honestly. apologies for these last three installments being hunnihawk, i'm hoping the next inspiration i receive will be for a different ship.
> 
> EDIT: added something to #57, i’m the kind of person that thinks of ways to fix a work right after posting it huh.

56\. Breakfast

The breakfast menu is unsurprisingly consistent. Army surplus powdered eggs reconstituted with army surplus powdered milk (this is surprising, but the lack of richness it should provide to the eggs is not) reconstituted with water that is perhaps army surplus, army surplus ham, and army surplus toast. All of which is slapped onto the tray like a backhand to the tongue.

There have been enough times to comment that the orange juice is also reconstituted -- juice, pulp, pits and all, and a soldier be an unfunny fellow if they didn’t seize the opportunity to say it. A paltry, sparse chuckle from the audience of the table as an appetizer more sumptuous than the ketchup and the relish (NOT surplus, not that many people find use for it) combined. And BJ believes, morbidly, that the coffee is only half real coffee, half the ashes of the burnt wreckages that plague Korea. Would explain why the coffee makes his tongue a little brownish black after one cup.

“Ah, breakfast,” Hawkeye slowly pierces his fork through a bit of egg and stares unamused when the give of it is just too much like rubber to be comforting. “Supposedly the best way to start the day.” He salts it and then bites it with his front teeth. The second of revulsion that passes through his face does not go unnoticed but nonetheless, he perseveres and chews.

“Wonder who was the propagandist in charge of that.” BJ taps a slice of the extra crisp bacon against his tray and the bang that resounds among the choir of fork scrapes and spoon stirs makes itself scarce. Though like a gong, it leaves a reverberation. An aftermath really. Unlike Hawkeye and his portion of eggs, BJ does not deign to eat the bacon and puts the two in a cross as an artistic statement.

Hawkeye looks over at the bacon cross. “Captain, I don’t think thar be treasure in these here parts.”

“Treasure is subjective -- there is nothing under the cross and I consider that gold.”

“I’ll break my teeth to that,” and BJ swears he really did when Hawk bites into one of his own, but he manages. The sound is close to boots against gravel. When Hawkeye swallows, his countenance takes on an air of contentedness. A smile that betrays his meal’s malice.

“So, about last night,” Hawkeye keeps his voice quiet and leans towards BJ while he sips plaintively on his coffee. “I mean, you don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to, if you want this to be a one time thing I can do that, I can... But what I really wanted to say was, it was great.”

“It was terrific,” BJ answers, stunted in a way only a mind preoccupied with layers and layers of heady vignettes of the past can be. Like meandering through a grassy field, he tries to find the words among the blades and shrubs. “I don’t dislike the idea of continuing, despite--”

“Despite everything that could--”

“Yeah, everything that could--”

“Could ruin our lives--”

“Could change everything--”

“That’s a soft way of putting it--”

“I’m trying to keep my toast down, you must understand--”

“Of course.” And then Hawkeye shuts up. Not that he cares about BJ being able to eat his toast and put up with it. It was a dangerous gamble to be discussing this, there in the mess tent -- though people have started to shuffle out for the immediate bliss of sitting down elsewhere. There is an implicit economy of words that was allowed between them about this topic, too thick a journey about discovery and self acceptance to venture into before one of them was utterly submerged in some distraught pudding. Hawkeye had eaten enough of that to be sick.

“I do want to, though.” BJ finally says as he pushes his tray away; though he shepherds his coffee back against his greatest pleasure. Rumour had it there was going to be a predicted enemy barrage at the border and it was going to be a rough shift. The coffee in the army surplus samovar as well — it needed to be emptied out! The sediment at the bottom collects fast. Therein laid the conviction the unit all had to consume not because they wanted to anymore, but because it is what is plainly listed as what you’re supposed to do. Where demand becomes a moral obligation rather than a desire. “It just feels natural to be...”

“In the embrace of another man.” The mess tent was practically empty, save for a single man in the corner playing cat’s cradle with himself. This allowed Hawkeye to raise his voice just a tad bit.

BJ only nods. “It felt right,” he says then. “Other things about the idea of being with men, I don’t see a problem with either.”

Hawkeye worries his lip if only for a second before his eyes go to meet BJ’s, in a moment of shrewd vulnerability. “Then would you keep trying it then?” Hawkeye’s eyes subtly plead while everything else in his face is trying to maintain a facade of flippancy. “It doesn’t have to be with me but--”

BJ claps a hand on his shoulder. Hawk’s posture is closed off, withdrawing because he feels peculiar, somehow, beyond all other feelings churning in his gut. For once in his life, he feels like he’s not allowed to hunger. The warm, tender hand BJ puts on Hawkeye’s shoulder becomes warmer when it moves up to rest under Hawkeye’s chin to tilt his head towards him, and then their foreheads become warm as they meet, like their eyes as well, and so as their parted lips almost...

“I’ve never been dishonest with my feelings, you know that Hawk,” Curiously, conveniently, even the cat’s cradle man had left before BJ said that. “When I want these things with men, I find that the only man that comes up in my head is you.”

He keeps trying to keep everything down, Hawkeye, when he trembles just for a moment and then tampers it down as to not cause a stir in an empty tent. What comes out of his lips is nervous, just a sound that hopefully conveys his ecstasy and hesitance all at once. He starts tasting the egg from earlier again as a distraction.

Then BJ kisses him. Suffice to say, every day starts with a good meal.

*

57\. Lunch

Hawkeye makes no tedious action to hide his energy, drumming his fingers against the table while the chef prepared their meals. He feels like fiddling with the napkins, arranging his knife and fork five times over. Hawkeye had been telling BJ about the surf and turf here, its splendour, the way the garlic butter is generous on BOTH servings, the way the lobster pops in the mouth with each bite and mingles with the steak that falls apart down to the marrow... He tries to wrangle himself back down lest his newly pressed tux gets a spit shining from his hedonist owner.

BJ in the meanwhile, samples the wine and admires a bread roll. It had been a couple months since the war ended and it seemed like now or never BJ had to bite the bullet and contact Hawkeye about seeing each other again. Clammy fingers held the phone while BJ asked with nerves shot like fireworks if Hawkeye was interested, and it was a relief Hawkeye was nothing but cordial, consenting, and glad to hear it. But why is that a relief? BJ grabs the butterknife off the plate to cut off a generous golden dollop of creamed butter and runs it all too salaciously over a plucked bread roll — cut in half, BJ was no crust buttering animal, and savours the pillowiness of the bread coming together with the butter melting on his tongue. It was all an elaborate act to put his mind off elephants and loose ties, but the bread was a buttered gem in the desert.

The truth was that Hawkeye was indeed excited. Excited about going to the restaurant, at least. He had kept the recommendation from Charles during their occasional conversations about fine dining and other sophisticated junk, a topic that mostly involved Charles with a stiff in his pants as he luxuriated over his savoir faire to a Hawkeye with one too many martinis in his gut.

The times when Hawkeye was not drunk under the table but was not in the right mind either to protest Charles going on about some excellent clam joint in Andover were the times when Hawkeye would entertain himself on Charles’ words. It was then that Hawkeye was crazily enough able to recommend Potter “tilt his nest of ambrosia away from him and extricate his liquid gold with a scooping motion” (Charles’ words, not his) in order to elevate the dining experience of his canned army chili that he realized that Charles’ lectures had stuck to his brain, like soft white bread on the roof of one’s mouth. Amongst monologues about how to eat caviar like some wedgied aristocrat and the odd lessons in Latin was the name of one restaurant that, as Charles claimed, was the true oyster of Rhode Island.

”Pierce, you would be remorse as to not sample the goods that flow forth from that restaurant’s kitchen, it is the sheer essence of New England...” Charles would moan, to the audience of a drunk.

”When I’m decent, which is never.” Is Hawkeye’s reply as he measured an olive to his nose. Charles is too caught up in his memories to express displeasure.

”Ahhhh Pierce, another helpful phrase to learn in Latin, it is the mother of all romance languages after all...” Charles teaches like everyone is a child to him and in this instance, it was true.

“Veritas liberabit vos,” He says with a flourish.

Hawkeye grunts.

“The truth, shall set you free...” And then Charles is called to Post-Op by a benevolent Gd and Hawkeye is left to drunkenly lay on his cot in peace.

In which case as soon as Hawkeye was decent and settled after the war he set out briefly to the very restaurant he and Beej are in right now. The experience was eye opening, heavenly to say the least.

“Say ‘when’ if you don’t want me to force feed you this caesar salad.”

Hawkeye dodges the fork impaled with saucy lettuce and a very fragrant herbed crouton with parmesan to spare. “When,” he answers, setting his napkin on his lap (Charles’ etiquette lessons also stuck around, it would seem) before fetching his salad fork and digging in. Caesar salad is hard to ruin, so long as the dressing has enough garlic in it. Somehow this place manages to put such a perfect amount of it, one would think they deployed it by the atom until one’s tastebuds sang with hymns of Gd’s glory when it touched your tongue. The croutons, too, he could go on!

But he couldn’t. As BJ sat across from him remarking just as animatedly about the garlic in the dressing, he could hear the jungle pounding in his ears demanding their stampeding rights.

Perhaps it’s a bad time for Hawkeye to talk about what had happened before they said their final farewells in Korea, at least today. BJ says, “You know Hawkeye, isn’t it a little weird to have steak and lobster during lunch?” and Hawkeye merely responds with, “It’s almost 4, it’s a late lunch going on dinner. But I’m used to eating dinner around 8 or 9 anyway...” to which BJ grunts in agreement before catching in his periphery the waiter with a tray of their main event sizzling on warmed plates.

The sight of bright red lobster tail brimming with bright white flesh, contrasting against slices of medium rare steak, lying on pools of the meat’s juices coalescing with butter and sauce with but a humble pile of vegetables on the side was all too heady a treat. BJ and Hawkeye tucked in with gusto and a second wine bottle was ordered to bring the night from a flame that subdued itself to the mildest puff of air to a roaring bonfire for the two of them to dance around in complete bliss. 

Hawkeye tried so hard to forget about the past. So in-the-moment as he was, trying to just enjoy this night with someone he knows he’ll never have a chance with ever again, someone Hawkeye let do as he pleased with him fatalistically until gaining sense and leaving him in the dust that was his damp cot when everything was over.

As Hawkeye chased away demons, BJ thought, what an interesting name for a restaurant. A restaurant named “End of Lover’s Lane” felt odd as the restaurant isn’t situated literally at the end of a lover’s lane, something Hawkeye did not make comment on.

The name of the dish they were eating too, “Cum vero moritur in ore suo qui comedit”, was in fitting with the theme that this restaurant seemed apt as a date spot, contrary (as BJ interprets) to its name. Latin was the mother of romance language after all, BJ noted. Hawkeye spared himself the confusion and didn’t say it as he ordered, he said instead “Two surfs, and two turfs, if you please,” and when the waiter walked away he remarked, “Bit of a mouthful, that dish’s name!” then had himself a bite of a roll. He spoke as he chewed loudly. “Makes you wish you knew Latin.”

BJ, looking around then with an unfocused gaze, agreed.

*

58\. Dinner

“I think I overcooked the meatloaf a little bit,” Peg apologizes as she and BJ cleared the table with the efficiency only a married couple could achieve. She was trying, in her own unwaveringly gentle way, to keep the atmosphere light.

Hawkeye’s fingers were gripping at his slacks until it hurt to dig the fabric in. The meatloaf was perfectly fine, he thinks. Bless any woman who blames herself in little ways, as if the problem was not with the two men in the room who had the argument but the poor lady caught in the middle. BJ kneels down to gingerly pick up the bigger pieces of broken wine glass and is careful to avoid the pieces they’ll have to handle with much more care.

“It wasn’t overcooked honey,” BJ throws the pieces of glass into the trash and grabs the broom and pan. He’s been avoiding Hawkeye’s glare the entire time, moving to find something else to put his focus on besides Hawkeye’s quivering, tearful disposition. “You always worry you overcook it because you made it with turkey, so you think it dries up faster with the normal amount of cooking time a meatloaf has. But you’re smart Peggy, it’s the mushrooms and extra ketchup you add that helps it keep its moisture.”

“I didn’t add the extra ketchup this time around,” Peg quietly responds and she holds the pan in place while BJ sweeps the shards in. When he finishes and she stands back up to bring it to the trash can, she cringes with every clack of her heels. How loud it sounds in the utter silence. The sound of glass meeting with other glass and trash as she threw it in was in her mind, the last straw. “BJ, can we talk in the laundry room for a little bit?” she finally says, after a quiet moment of trying to calm her nerves, and BJ, caught up in avoiding the man sitting at their dining table like a stranger, nods and follows her towards it.

They round the corner to the left and Peg shuts the accordion door behind them, lingering on the handle and not turning around to face her husband. She lingers, and then finally turns around. Angry tears form at the corner of her eyes. “How dare you say that to him,” BJ moves to embrace her and is stopped quickly by her staunch gaze of irreverence, to which he responds with eyes that read remorse for the wrong person. “I thought I knew you better than to be so disrespectful, so rude,”

“You’re not part of this Peggy,” BJ answers, with an evenness that completely betrays his outburst from earlier. His fingers twitch for the feeling of Peg’s curls in between them, as Peg always let him play with her hair when he was in a mood. “What had happened was between me and him.”

“You invite someone to OUR house to have dinner with US, whatever happens at the dinner table is something EVERYBODY has to bear,” Peg spits out. She’s trying desperately to not raise her voice no matter how much she wants to just scream in BJ’s face his transgressions, how wrong they were, “YOU invited him over and you have the audacity to ask why he was there, why he-- why he has to HAUNT you every second of your life! What does that even mean, BJ--”

“It’s nothing honey--”

“Don’t call me ‘honey’--”

“Peg--”

“You called him a, a--”

“I know Peggy, you don’t have to--”

“A queer!” Peg finally spits out, unable to keep her voice down any longer. The burst of guilt she feels after saying it makes her withdraw quickly back to herself, it feels pronounced in wake of the hurt that flashes in BJ’s eyes when she said it. “I’m sorry,” the apology tumbles out as soon as she gets her bearings, and in her quiet lilt again. For all obvious reasons, BJ doesn’t attempt to mollycoddle her feelings.

“It’s fine,” he says, strained, and then he walks to the end of the room to lean over the washer. “I know what I said and I’m... I’m not proud of it Peg.”

“Why did you say it BJ?”

A tense silence occurs before BJ finally brings himself to say it. “Because... Because he is one.”

“How do you know? Did he tell you?”

“No... I know because I’m...” BJ trails off because his face feels wet. He lifts up his sleeve to rub at his eyes angrily and to his surprise, his heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to stop any moment. He feels the embrace of a tiny five foot two woman at his back, whose blonde hair couldn’t compete anymore with... “I’m one too. Peggy, I’m a homosexual.”

Silence stretches from seconds to minutes and he doesn’t feel her leave his back despite it all. “BJ,” she says, evenly still, steadfast in her delivery, “I know you are.”

BJ swallows with a dry mouth. Does he even bother asking how? How long she’s known? His being closeted since they met was nothing uncertain; but it was never stated. He hadn’t even acted out his greatest desires until the war, when he met him.

“I saw the way he looked at you,” Peg answers anyway, sensing his silence as an invitation to relieve his burning questions. Her face softens as she recalls the dinner before it went to ruin. “I saw the way... You looked at him, the way you two talked to one another... The way the distance between you two at the table, just across from each other, felt like you two were miles apart, and how you wanted so badly to close the gap...”

“Peggy,” BJ begins to lean into her touch, as he had wanted her to do when they first closed themselves in here, and allowed himself security in her embrace. He closed his eyes and let himself breathe. “I’m so sorry Peggy.” he says, and Peg’s soft hands ball up the fabric of his shirt and he begins to feel her shake behind him. He stays there listening to her choked sobs begin to increase in volume, her tears and nose drippings beginning to soak his back.

“I felt like a complete and utter intruder,” she cries, and presses her face against BJ’s back further, rubbing her face in while BJ remains unfaltering in his method of becoming a rock for Peg to lean on, as he has always done for her. Just as she has always done for him.

“I felt like the odd one out, I was trying to piece together as best as I could why I suddenly felt so alone at the table, why I felt invisible even though it was just a dinner between me, my husband, and his friend from the war, and then I saw how your eyes were taken with him! And then I realized that I really was alone, I was completely alone and all I could feel was sorry for myself! So sorry for myself because I kept thinking it was my fault that I couldn’t keep you with me somehow, some way to stop them from drafting you so you could be with me forever and we would grow old together, and Erin would grow up and start her own family,

and we would spend the rest of our days, sitting on the porch in silence reflecting on the life we made for ourselves and how we lived our lives to the fullest and how at any moment, we could perhaps die in each other’s arms peacefully, on our four post bed or on the couch as we watched reruns of our favourite show and--”

The accordion door suddenly opens and Peg whips around with BJ to see Hawkeye, attempting to be as unobtrusive as possible as he meekly stands at the doorway, his hands rubbing at his arms.

“I just wanted to say,” Hawkeye says, his face downcast to avoid what he assumes are their angry faces for intruding on them. When he hears a sniff from Peg, he looks up with his timidness to see them both tear stained and raw, and he realizes something very different happened. “I... I just wanted to say that I’m leaving,” his right hand grips itself as he searches for the right words to say, without trying to make any reference to what had happened. “And that I’m sorry,” He fails.

Before BJ can go to him, to stop him, Peg is already there holding Hawkeye’s hands in her own and with her best smile on. “Don’t be sorry,” she says, soothing Hawkeye with small quaint gestures, her hands moving to only one of his hands to pet and hold gently. He relaxes in her grip, and thinks about how lucky BJ is to have her. “We... He wanted you to come, after all, and everything that had happened at the dinner table, well... It’s not your fault.”

“It was never your fault,” says BJ from the back, having avoided Hawkeye’s gaze still and is now looking at him dead on. Hawkeye stares back, subdued, and yet pleading with an intensity that bears in mind those who grovel for the bare necessities and get scraps in return. “It’s all on me,” he says, and Hawkeye, cordial as he is, looks at Peg with great gratitude before releasing himself from her grasp to walk over to BJ, who began to cry himself.

What happens afterwards is something Peg doesn’t stick around for, she excuses herself to an audience of nobody and leaves to check on Erin, who she is relieved to see hasn’t lost a wink of sleep from the ruckus. She presses her lips against her forehead, and she was sure she closed the door completely before she left, but when she spares a glance towards the room’s way, the door is cracked open just enough to reveal her now ex-spouse with his friend caught in a kiss that was so innocent and yearning, lacking in passion but filled incessantly to the brim with simple desire.

It was sweet, the way BJ cups Hawkeye’s tilted head in his hands like he’s handling porcelain or glass. Hawkeye, vulnerable as he was, exposed further his broken down, beaten down self to reveal an even rawer more fragile side of him that flourished underneath BJ’s touch, letting BJ put him back together however he wants him. Peg watched for a second before she excused herself again, thinking greatly that if BJ could have that, what he wanted, maybe she can have what she wants as well. The way the door cracked open like that, maybe it was calculated, perhaps it was coincidence, perhaps the events just lined up in a way that, by seeing BJ happy, Peg could come to her conclusion that she can be happy too. She is allowed to be unapologetically happy.

In her happiness, she puts off doing the dishes for tomorrow, pulls out the folding couch for the two lovebirds, and sleeps on the four post bed all by herself in a starfish position, occupying every corner. In the morning, she, BJ, and Hawkeye will have a long talk about their plans together as a couple and a single mother, and what to have for dinner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unfortunately the phrase “Cum vero moritur in ore suo qui comedit” doesn’t translate from latin to english very well in google translate — you should know that the phrase was translated from english to latin on google translate in the first place though, as a disclaimer about my abilities in latin, which is next to nothing. i really hoped you could just translate it on your own and have the translation unfold a new layer to the part! such is life. the phrase i typed in was “the truth died in his mouth when he ate”, hope that’s like cool to you and your experience in reading my work! thaaaank youuu


	6. Hawklyle, 47-48

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a two parter chapter where the next chapter should cover the next two related prompts of this -- completing it as a 4-in-2. figured i'd post these two now because i finally wrote it! hawkeye/lyle is one of my favourite rarepairs and springtime is one of my favourite episodes period. i wish it was given some attention, i think the dynamic offers so much!

47\. Heart

“I’m telling you Doc,” he pleads, up to his knees with the floor as he stands before you. “I love you, I really do!”

“Lyle,” you groan, but thank him silently for confessing this in an empty place. To hell with getting a dishonourable discharge — what would the nurses think of him while he’s being drenched with the affection of a Marine. “I love you about as much as the next guy, but—”

“Doc, I don’t think you understand.” Lyle says, and then he takes your hands into his, so firm and strong, and kisses them. You flush immediately. “I don’t love you in the way that you and that Trapper fella do! I love you like a man should with a woman! And yet... Aw gee, every time I see ya doc, I just want to hug and kiss you all over!” He shoots up at the thought and moves to do so, but catches your wide eyes and collects himself. Lyle scratches the back of his head and looks away bashfully.

“Shucks Doc, I’m sorry... I should ask first before putting my hands on a l...” He closes his mouth and you roll your eyes. Kind of out of embarrassment really. Your face still feels a little hot.

“On a man,” you supply tersely. “A man who thinks it’s not a good idea for two men in the army to share the same cot no matter how much they’re in love, if you catch my drift.”

“Does that mean you return the same feelings Doc? Oh Doc—”

“Call me Hawkeye,” you watch his face light up and feel your chest twist for some reason. “And,” you stop to think about it. But you can’t really explain it.

Lyle was always just another patient — albeit a Marine, a very menacing one at that. You operated on him, and then he latched onto you like what you thought was like a child to its mother. A ruthless, overprotective child that could break his mother in two pieces if he wanted to. You don’t dare entertain the thought longer.

So this notable childlike innocence he bears to you as he bears his heart is levels beyond uncomfortable — the coupling of this innocence with strength like an ox is downright anxiety inducing. You’re now, or have finally noticed you were, caught between deferring to his naked and vulnerable emotions... And trying to kick yourself into flight mode in case rejecting him will cause a springtime casualty. You wish you switched patients with Trap.

“Well Doc— Hawkeye,” Lyle asks, with his face like a puppy’s. “Do you love me back?”

You keep considering it. He’s not a bad looking guy: he’s packed and has big brown eyes, that stare in an unyielding but unaggressive way. They’re warm and honest. Like his strength, it sort of urges you to do what he says — but it’s not because he’ll throttle you, but because how could you say no to him?

“I don’t know about love,” you answer sincerely, and cringe when you see Lyle’s face go through a mix of hurt and slight anger. There goes the dipping of the pigtail in ink. “but... I never turned down an honest lover if she has me back.”

“Huh?” All that stuff about you being the greatest man in the world though — it’s a little too sugary to be true. You notice he’s still holding your hands gently, and with so much restraint.

“It means I don’t know yet Lyle,” Out of instinct, you move closer to him like you would with a nurse, like you would when you’re flirting with her... Coaxing her to you through your body heat. “But I’m willing to give you a chance, if that’s clear enough.” And Lyle rests his hands assertively on your waist while you draw closer. Maybe that was out of instinct too. You feel blood rush southwards and northwards and all over. Cold and hot and then hot and cold, fear and arousal and then arousal and fear?

Lyle stands back to take off his hat and fingers it with both hands before he throws his arms around you and gives you a big sloppy kiss on the lips. A small zing runs down your back, followed by the rushing of cold blood again as you try to acclimate. “Oh Hawkeye! Make me the happiest man in the world!”

You reciprocate the hug without trying to draw attention to your confusing half hard-on and the result ends up messier than his kiss. You don’t know where this’ll take you, but at least he’ll save you a seat at the mess tent.

“My heart belongs to you,” you croon, in a mildly sarcastic manner. Luckily these things seem to fly over his head, because his eyes light up with joy and you’re too weak to resist the new and improved bear hug.

“Oh— Doc—!”

The year is 1951. Spring has bloomed unwittingly. The military seems to have no problem with letting Lyle stay, and you wonder who he strangled to do that. You’ve made it a habit to sheepishly look around to see if anyone is gawking.

*

48\. Diamond

Summer, 1951.

Well, it’s getting hot in Korea, and you feel hot too as you watch Hawkeye lounge on his chair outside with his shirt riding up to catch the sun. Doesn’t he know what he does to you?

“Down Lyle, down,” He chides you and you sit back up — you were leaning closer to him without realizing. You’ve been sitting on the chair adjacent to him and too caught up in trying to see what his figure looks like behind his fatigues to lie down.

“Sorry, Doc— I mean Hawk.”

“No offense taken whatsoever,” Hawkeye says, the heat taking away any anger he could harbour. He nurses the lighter fluid he calls a martini on his stomach. Boy it’s hot. “Isn’t it something, it’s so hot there hasn’t been a single wave of casualties in three weeks.”

“This place gets awful boring when nobody’s dying.”

“Now save that kind of talk for stateside young man! Only people back in the states have the privilege of watching the death count as entertainment — doesn’t matter if our side’s dying of heatstroke or shrapnel, Gd bless them all, just Gd bless them!”

“You sound delirious Doc,”

“I’ve been in a state of delirium since they threw me out of the cargo hold all those months ago,” He slurs — from the heat, not the alcohol. “They kept asking me, ‘What are you doing next to the box of martini olives?’ and I said, ‘These are my children now... Also where am I?’”

If you don’t find a cool place for him to lay down in soon, you think he might go crazy. “Doc, I don’t think you can sit out in the sun any longer,” you say, trying to scoop him up in your arms. He slips around like a wet eel. “Hang tight, I’m gonna find somewhere nice and cold for you to calm down in.”

He keeps trying to escape, or he’s just a little too lanky for your stouter arms. “The French are glad to die for love!” He starts belting out, “They delight in fighting duels!”

You finally wrangle him and start to walk. “But I prefer a man who lives and gives expensive jewels, a kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best frieeeeend!” He’s always singing this song. You don’t know why, but you think it’s just the heat. Always singing it around you and dancing circles around you with it.

You find his hand hanging near your face at just the right moment and you kiss it. He wraps his arms around your neck, bats his lashes coquettishly, and gives you a peck on the cheek back that draws titters from the few nurses hanging around. You fight back a blush, knowing he’s just doing it to make the girls laugh.

“I said,” he teases, before going into another row. “Diaaaamooooonds are a girl’s beeeest frieeeeennnnddd!”

“I don’t have diamonds,” you deadpan and wipe a bit of sweat from your forehead, thinking about how gifted he is, to even carry a tune. He really is great. “Just have myself Doc. I hope it’s enough.”

——

You decide to go to one of the private examination rooms, where in darkness it might be good enough to ward off Hawkeye’s oncoming feverishness bordering on craziness.

“Now doesn’t this feel better Doc,” You sit him down onto the examination table and he does his normal thing and lounges on it like a cat. When he’s like this, you find your eyes lingering all over him again. There’s just something about him that you can’t help but look up to. And look all over... You don’t recall ever being this pent up before.

He groans softly and cranes his neck to look at you. “Beats slowly roasting myself to a nice crisp,” he says, “I suppose.”

You sit yourself down on a chair from the side of the wall and then scooch it over until you can rest in your arms on the table next to his head. He watches the ceiling purposely. “Doc, can I level with you on something?”

His eyes fall shut. “Sure, just lie down next to me and then we can see eye to eye.” You make the motion to do so and then he immediately stops you.

“It was a joke, Lyle.”

“Oh.”

“You know because— level,” He gestures to show you exactly what he means.

“Oh!”

“Atta boy.” He pats you on the shoulder and you take to it like a well trained dog.

“Can I still level with you, Doc?” He’s back to putting his hands behind his head, lying down like the sun can pass the walls and tan him still. And you’re back to the painstaking process of adjusting your collar, so to speak as you look at his Adam’s apple and his pale unmarked neck.

“Sure sure sure sure, sorry for digressing,”

“I don’t know what that means, I was just gonna ask why we haven’t done anything together yet.”

He sits up to that. You sit up too. “We’re together right now,” he says, tightly.

“You’re smarter than that Doc,” you say. And then you muster up the courage to kiss the bit of jaw right under his ear. He shudders and you can’t tell if it’s good or bad. “We’ve been dating for several months and we haven’t done much else except a couple of kisses here and there, I’m just wondering if maybe one night we can—”

He gently pushes you away from him, even though you can see the goosebumps forming on his skin. He’s cold.

“Listen, Lyle,” he grits out and you feel like he knows that all you want at least in this moment, is to embrace him. And he knows and you know that he won’t give it. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I’ve come to look upon you very fondly since we started this whole thing, but I don’t know if I’m ready for it, that’s all.”

“No, I get it, Doc.” You can’t help but feel mad. Letting him tease you like this and not being to do anything about it, you know when you’re being fooled. “This is all a game to you, isn’t it? You still don’t think I really love you?”

“What? No no no, I’ve picked up all the messages on that one, no wrong sender there—”

“Is it because I’m ugly? I’m embarrassing to be with aren’t I, Doc? You could be with someone as handsome and great as Trapper but instead you took pity on me—”

“Trapper,” he quickly says, “I don’t feel that way about him, and— Lyle—” He practically leaps off the table to stop you from walking out of the room in a huff, grabbing your shoulder roughly but almost tenderly as well. The two of you take a moment to breathe.

“Lyle,” he repeats your name and you crumble. As you always do when it’s him. “Don’t run out on me.” He puts his arms around you so you can slot his fingers between yours when they come all the way around in a gentle embrace. “I’m sorry Lyle.”

“It’s okay Doc,” You’re not a crier. You’re not crying you’re just sweating. The heat and everything. “You can tell me the truth, whether you like Trapper that way or not—”

“I don’t,” He interjects.

“Right, well, Doc, you don’t have to stick around just because I scare you or something. Just because I’m scary and unlovable shouldn’t mean...” And then all of a sudden, he’s right in front of you and hugging you in a way that makes you want to start blubbering. You don’t of course.

“Lyle,” he begins, separating himself slightly to look you straight in the eye. Now you’re the one who feels a little compromised. “Lyle, you don’t have to put yourself down like that. You’re fine the way you are.”

“You’re caring, you’re kind,” he brings his hands to your face and cradles you. “Most of all, you’re attractive — give yourself credit, Lyle. If I could, I would leap into your arms every time I saw you.”

“Then why don’t you?” He looks so small.

“Because I’m scared Lyle.” He confesses. Upon hearing that, you’re quick to place your hands on his waist protectively. All you can think is he must love it. Must have loved it all along. “I’m scared of how much I’ve come to like you.”

“Why?”

“Because you treat me better than I deserve.”

“Doc...” You stop, lead him backwards until his back hits the exam table, and lift him up until he’s sitting on it. He accepts it like a child, your hands stay on his abdomen like a security hold. “Hawkeye,” you correct yourself, huskier than before.

Hawkeye doesn’t say anything. You then take his wrists in your hands and then kiss the insides of them. He makes a small squeak. “Lyle,” he rasps out.

You press against Hawkeye’s body and he wraps his legs around you. Hawkeye takes his hands from you and then wraps his arms around your neck and then kisses you in a way that feels like he’s wanted this for some time. You return the kiss back hungrily.

“Tell me Hawkeye,” you huff, skittering your hands down to where you can slip them under his shirt to feel the skin of his back, to feel his rumbles and twitches. “That song you keep singing, I only remember two lines from it — ‘A kiss on the hand may be quite continental, but diamonds are a girl’s best friend’,” Hawk’s shirtless now, of his own volition, and smashing his face right back against yours in an intense liplock.

“Tell me,” While you try to squeeze as much sound out of him as possible by feeling up his body. “Anywhere I can get diamonds in Korea?”

He keens and tugs on your jacket, urging you to take it off. Oh well. Better luck getting him to answer you another time.


End file.
